Sometimes, I feel insecure when using social networks specially Facebook. It has happened several times that I received a message from a friend or a shared link on my friend’s wall but has not been shared or sent by that person. I suppose a social network like Facebook is attractive bait for scammers and fraudsters, since millions of users are connected and, an exploit or vulnerability can be hastily scattered over the network.
I even received a message from one of my friends living in another country some months ago, describing his miserable situation. In the message, was written that he is on a trip and lost all his money, cell phone and everything he had; so needs immediate help by asking for money transfer to his bank account! I’d say I was influenced and believed the story at that moment but after thinking for a while, I hesitated! If it was a true story he wouldn’t ask me, but a closer friend or a family member since I haven’t had heard anything from him for a long time.
Facebook is full of games and applications, for lots of them the source is not the Facebook portal, while using them would give permission to access our account information. Many of them are phishing and malicious programs aiming for social engineering. Various fun quizzes which are widespread can be suitable for phishing by asking users about personal identity information or taking them to fake websites.
Taking a look at a scambaiting website such as Scam-O-Rama, a story about a Facebook scam shows that even when you chat through Facebook with a friend whom you know for years, you should be skeptical whether you are talking to your friend or a scammer! It has happened that a person chat with a friend who is in trouble and asks for immediate help to send money. The conversation is usually tried to be short and depict a stressful atmosphere not to let that person think or hesitate about the situation! I noticed that lots of people do not insert their Birthday in the info page because of identity theft and some provide wrong information. Many are cautious about sharing data on social networks yet still I suppose it is easy to spy and scam through social networks as of gullible majority.
Interactive Media 